The promise of milder weather initiated a visit to our Woodland Feeding Station near Storth. Two short nets cover the feeders and our second net round produced only the second Brambling for the site. But this adult male was different- it was already ringed! In 50 years of ringing our group has only ringed a total of 308 Brambling and just 12 over the past ten years- and this is our first control. So we wait with interest the ringing details of this British ringed bird.
It was a good morning with 57 birds caught, many from previous visits to the site including both Coal and Blue Tits in their fifth year.
So far we have made Seven visits to the site this autumn and early winter and some interesting statistics are coming out. Blue Tit is as usual the commonest bird with 79caught. But Coal Tit with 68 runs it very close. Chaffinch is next with 50 followed by Great Tit with 48.
These four species appear to have had a successful breeding season - all four are well up on the same period in previous years with roughly similar effort. The numbers of Coal Tits is quite exceptional 20 - 30 is the usual catch.
John
No comments:
Post a Comment